Huang Taiji Pancakes: Traditional "local snacks" also needs "being tall"

Speaking of pancake fruit, we will think of roadside food stalls in the morning. Office workers buy a steaming pancake fruit, and then eat it while rushing to work. It's hard to imagine someone sitting in an elegantly decorated shop, listening to pop music, drinking drinks and eating pancake fruit gracefully. However, in Beijing, someone opened such a pancake fruit shop-Huang taiji pancake. Eating pancakes in this store feels like drinking coffee at Starbucks. However, "Starbucks" is more "tall" and "Huang Taiji Pancake" is more grounded.

The success of "Huang Taiji Pancake" is not only the result of operating traditional snacks with internet thinking, but also the result of micro-innovation-clean and elegant environment, meticulous store design, a series of foods related to pancake fruit, and fashionable white-collar workers who come in and out of the store wave after wave. You all suspect that this is not like eating pancake fruit, but more like eating western food.

In 2004, He Chang came back from abroad to do design work in Baidu, which was his first job. Later, he worked as a user director in Qunar.com and a brand and user manager in Google. In 2009, He Chang started his own business and set up an advertising company, which is doing well. At the age of 27, he became the founding partner of the youngest 4A advertising company in the world. However, even if his career is successful, He Chang is still not satisfied. He wants to cook and sell pancake fruit.

What does He Chang think of the fact that the advertising company on Gaodashang is closed and wants to sell pancake fruit? Because He Chang is a "gourmet" and a good cook, he loves to eat and cook. He wanted to open a restaurant long ago. However, there are so many kinds of Chinese food, what should we do specifically? He thought of KFC and McDonald's. The long-term development of this foreign fast food in China has much to do with its simple operation mode. For example, hamburgers can be ordered and meat can be ordered with two pieces of bread, and what is sandwiched can be changed at will, which can not only realize standardized operation but also constantly change, and both food production and restaurant operation are relatively simple. Cooking Chinese food is much more complicated. To be delicious, it depends on the chef, but the chef often can't do standardized operation, and it is difficult to keep the taste consistent and delicious forever. Then, can we find foods like KFC and McDonald's in Chinese food that can not only achieve standardized operation but also continuously expand the taste? He thought of pancake fruit.

Friends were surprised to hear that he wanted to sell pancake fruit. In their view, He Chang is a fashionable and tasteful person who wants to sell such "local" traditional snacks. However, He Chang said that although pancake fruit is a traditional snack, it is not "earth". Even if it is "the earth", he will sell it as a trendy and "tall" food. So, after some preparations, Hechang's pancake fruit shop "Huang Taiji Pancake" opened.

How does Huang Taiji attract its target customers? After all, it is not easy for white-collar workers to suddenly accept the pancake fruit that is "tall". This is about the marketing model of "Huang Taiji". He Chang is the boss from the Internet field, and he will definitely use his own advantage-customer experience for marketing.

In order to get a more accurate understanding of customers' feelings, diners can try "Huang Taiji" first, and then give feedback in the Internet test launched by "Huang Taiji", and "Huang Taiji" will adjust the taste of food according to the feedback of diners. By doing so, we can get accurate feedback from customers and take the opportunity to promote it.

Why is the "Huang Taiji" store so beautifully decorated? It's for people to share. If it is beautiful and interesting, someone will take pictures. After taking photos, it will be posted on WeChat and Weibo, which is equivalent to giving free publicity to "Huang Taiji". He Chang often chats with netizens on Weibo to find out how they feel about "Huang Taiji Pancake", and sends one or two long microblogs from time to time to attract fans' attention to "Huang Taiji".

He Chang also often creates topic events. For example, he used to drive his own Mercedes to deliver food, which was unintentional. As a result, this matter has become a hot topic among netizens-"the owner of Huang Taiji pancake shop drives a Mercedes-Benz to deliver food". Since netizens are so concerned, He Chang simply pushed this incident to the market and deliberately drove a Mercedes-Benz to deliver takeout. Therefore, many consumers took photos and uploaded them to the Internet, and "Huang Taiji Pancake" was effectively marketed.

In addition to Internet marketing, Huang Taiji has other marketing methods, such as an interesting advertisement: "Here, eating pancakes and drinking tofu brain to think about life." During the festival, Huang Taiji Pancake Shop will also launch various interesting activities, such as COSPLAY (animated reality show), pancake fruit when customers wear red scarves to eat in the store, pig's trotters during the Dragon Boat Festival, and "bringing dad to eat pancakes" on Father's Day. A pancake fruit has been played with so many tricks by He Chang. How can it not be spicy?

Therefore, "Huang Taiji Pancake" opened for one year, with a running water of more than 5 million, and was valued by venture capitalists at 40 million.

When talking about the secret of the success of "Huang Taiji", He Chang said that the first advantage of "Huang Taiji" lies in product advantages and the second lies in Internet thinking.

First of all, "Huang Taiji Pancake" is an improved traditional snack, completely getting rid of the feeling of "earth". Generally, the fruit in the middle of pancake fruit is "crispy", but the fruit in the middle of "Huang Taiji" pancake is fried with fried dough sticks, and alum is not added, because there are fried dough sticks in the middle of authentic pancake fruit. Besides pancake fruit, "Huang Taiji Pancake" also includes soybean milk, tofu, northeast burrito, mala Tang, Sichuan cold noodles, secret trotters, pumpkin soup and purple potato taro. This series of products includes staple food, drinks and desserts, and is no longer a monotonous pancake fruit in people's memory. It is hard for customers to think of "earth pancakes" when they eat such food in such a fashionable store. Therefore, many white-collar workers come here to eat. In order to facilitate customers to eat, "Huang Taiji" has set the business hours from 7 am to 2: 30 pm, and can also deliver takeout in the evening. In the slogan of "Huang taiji", it means "it gets dark at night, and we understand".

Secondly, Hechang has a strong advantage in Internet marketing. Because of his experience, he used to be an executive in several internet companies, and he once founded an advertising company, which was very good at marketing, especially internet marketing. He said that he dare not say that he is the person who knows internet marketing best in the catering industry, but he must be the person who knows internet marketing best in the pancake fruit industry, and he is the strongest in this field.

He Chang believes that the main feature of the Internet is to create demand rather than cater to it. For example, when there is no search, people will not feel that they need to search. When there was a search, people found that the original search brought so many conveniences and benefits to our lives. He also used this idea to create "Huang Taiji Pancake". Before this thing appeared, people would feel that they didn't like or need pancake fruit very much, and they didn't need to go to such a grand place to eat this food. However, when he tasted "Huang Taiji Pancake", he found that the food was so delicious that he liked it very much and needed to eat it again. This is "creating demand". If every entrepreneur can create demand rather than just cater to it, then he can always find opportunities to start a business.

Besides, He Chang is a young man himself. He knows more about the consumption tastes and needs of young people now, and he also knows how to communicate with them and win their attention. Therefore, "Huang taiji pancake" can be successful. However, He Chang is not complacent. He is still groping, hoping to find a set of ideas that combine traditional enterprises with Internet thinking more perfectly.

Who are the main customers of Hechang pancake fruit? Is it also sold to office workers who are in a hurry in the morning? This is not He Chang's main orientation for "Huang Taiji". He wants to sell pancake fruit to white-collar workers who often go to high-end office buildings.

For such a positioning, He Chang also had a lot of worries at first: according to common sense, soybean milk, fried dough sticks and pancake fruit are all breakfast. Will everyone come to his shop from morning till night? In everyone's impression, pancake fruit is a very cheap food, but the pancake fruit you sell is much more expensive. Can consumers accept this price? Roadside food stalls have been upgraded and moved to elegant halls. Will petty bourgeoisie white-collar workers who pay attention to emotional appeal accept this form?

In order to attract petty bourgeoisie white-collar workers to accept his pancake fruit, He Chang built his own shop in the style of "cool literature and art". His storefront was not chosen in the bustling city center, but a relatively deserted place; The storefront decoration is fashionable and elegant, and the style is somewhat similar to that of Hong Kong-style restaurants. All kinds of bonsai and novelty items from all over the world are placed in every corner of the store. Pop, jazz, blues and other music are constantly playing in the shop. In short, it is full of "literary coolness".

What is the "literary cool" style? He Chang is defined as follows:

Literature and art is to do small things to the extreme with delicate emotions, slow rhythm and gentle feelings. This extreme includes products, environment, marketing, added value and so on. , revealing a sense of literature and art. This is in line with the self-orientation of petty bourgeoisie white-collar workers in pursuit of emotional appeal and taste of life.

"Cool" means to make a boring thing very interesting. In everyone's mind, eating pancakes was originally a very unromantic thing, and the pancakes sold by the roadside were even an unhealthy food. But it is such a boring food that people don't expect much from it. After Hechang's creation, it has completely changed: pancakes can not only be eaten in a clean and romantic environment, but also sold in sports cars, which is so cool! For today's young people, everything interesting is "cool" to them.

After packaging, pancakes full of "literary coolness" have long been out of everyone's impression. When petty-bourgeois white-collar workers saw such pancakes, they could not restrain their appetite immediately, and He Chang's worries disappeared.

The "earth" pancakes in He Chang's hands are literary, high-grade and international. No wonder those petty bourgeoisie white-collar workers who drink Starbucks coffee have come over, because this store has a unique style and suits their mood.

This article is taken from the entrepreneurial guide "Light Entrepreneurship" in the Internet age.

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Yunxian Tian

Founder of education and training industry, international business war training authority, international training expert, chairman of the board of directors of Yunxian Tian International Education and Training Group, founder of Cloud Fund, founder of business war training system, and successfully developed a number of training systems such as King Corps, elite training camp, enterprise business war system, and enterprise operation complete system. He is the author of the best-selling book "I want to wait for the virtuous".